The best Raymond Pellegrin’s drama movies

In 1599 Italy, Beatrice Cenci is the teenage daughter of the crazed landowner and nobleman Francesco Cenci who keeps his daughter locked up in the dungeon of his castle and sexually abuses her as well. Beatrice then plots with her stepmother, her besotted servant Olimpio, as well as a local bandit, named Catalano, to plan Francesco’s murder.

This cop doesn't carry a gun - his fist is loaded!

The film follows four families, with different nationalities (French, German, Russian and American) but with the same passion for music, from the 1930s to the 1960s. The various story lines cross each other time and again in different places and times, with their own theme scores that evolve as time passes. The main event in the film is the Second World War, which throws the stories of the four musical families together and mixes their fates. Although all characters are fictional, many of them are loosely based on historical musical icons (Édith Piaf, Josephine Baker, Herbert von Karajan, Glenn Miller, Rudolf Nureyev, etc.) The Boléro dance sequence at the end brings all the threads together.

Paris 1960. DeGaulle determines to end a bitter war in Algeria by granting its independence. Millions oppose him, including a group of DeGaulle's disenchanted Arm Officers. In a desperate attempt to save the colony for France, they plan a daring jailbreak of their imprisoned leader. A network of snitches inform a tenacious detective leading to an explosive three-way cat-and-mouse game among the rebels, the Gaullist politicos and the police.

During the second world war, two British officers, Brand and Leith, who have never seen combat are assigned a vital mission. Their relationship and the operation are complicated by the arrival of Brand's wife, who had a tryst with Leith years earlier.

A gangster escapes jail and quickly makes plans to continue his criminal ways elsewhere, but a determined inspector is closing in.

The film follows the life of Napoleon from his early life in Corsica to his death at Saint Helena. The film is notable for its use of location shooting for numerous scenes, especially at the French estates of Malmaison and Fontainebleau, the Palace of Versailles, and sites of Napoleonic battles including Austerlitz and Waterloo.

Manuel Artiguez, a famous bandit during the Spanish civil war, has lived in French exile for 20 years. When his mother is dying he considers visiting her secretly in his Spanish home town. But his biggest enemy, the Spanish police officer Vinolas, prepared a trap at the hospital as a chance to finally catch Artiguez.

The fast career of a young Neapolitan among contraband, gambling dens, bribes and illegality. He will upgrade its rank till the maximum level of the "Family".

In this period piece set in Italy, Nicola Bellizzi dreams of becoming a lawyer. However, when he seeks the reason that people are reluctant to help him in his goals, he discovers that some of his blood relations are high-ranking members of the Mafia. He tries to break away from his family obligations, but falls into a life of crime and violence.

The yacht of millionaire Hellmann explodes in the Mediterranean Sea, with him and 8 men crew on board. Insurance agent Lucas investigates at the Cote D'Azur, because there's the suspicion that it could have been suicide. He finds out that Hellmann's villa was monitored, the tapes also contain information about the explosion. He uses them for blackmail.